beside ours. A deputy got out, a man I hadn't seen before. He was tall, thin, and middle-aged, his colorless hair shaved close to his head. He wore ugly glasses and he was tense as a coiled snake. He stalked to the rear of the car and looked at our Texas license plate like it was in German.
"I run your license plate," he said. "You got a warrant out for your arrest in Montana."
"No we don't," I said, but Tolliver gripped my arm.
"And you got a busted out taillight back here." He pointed, but I wasn't fool enough to get close to him to look. He waited for a reaction from us, seemed a little disappointed when he didn't get one. "You, sir, you're the legal owner of this car?"
"Yes," Tolliver said carefully.
"Lean up against your car with your hands on the hood. I'm going to have to take you in."
I felt a humming start up in my head, just a distant little humming. I stood frozen while my brother silently, almost casually, complied. Tolliver had seen the tension in the deputy's body, too.
"What..." I had to clear my throat. "What are you doing? "
"Outstanding warrants, he's got to go to jail while I clear this up."
"What?" I couldn't understand him because the humming felt louder.
"Judge'll come to town soon. If there's any mistake, he'll be out quick as a New York minute."
"What?"
"Ain't you understanding me?" the tall man said. "Can't you speak English, woman?"
"You're arresting my brother," I said.
"You got it."
"Because you say there's a Montana warrant out for him."
"Yes'm."
"But that's not true. The charges were dismissed."
"That's not what the computer says. And, ma'am, aside from that, there's the matter of the taillight." And he pointed. While Tolliver stayed where he was, I edged carefully around the car, keeping a safe distance from the deputy. The taillight was smashed.
"It was okay when we went in the store," I said.
"You'll excuse us if we can't take your word for it," the deputy said, smirking. He walked around the end of the car, taking care to stay as far from me as I wanted to be from him, and he patted Tolliver down. I could see shiny pieces of the broken light scattered on the street.
"When can I get him out?" I asked, pretending with all my might that the deputy didn't exist. This was sheer bullshit, but there was nothing I could do about it.
"After the judge sets the fine for the taillight, and we get this warrant thing settled," the deputy said. "We don't have a sitting judge here; have to wait for the judge to come around."
I gasped. I couldn't help it. Every fearful reaction I gave fed the deputy's sense of power and gloating, but there was nothing I could do about it. I was on the teetering edge of panic, and I was scrabbling around in my head for some way to put this right,
"What's your name?" I asked.
"Bledsoe," he answered, not too happily.
"Harper," my brother said. He was handcuffed now, and the humming level rose higher and higher as I looked at the metal around his wrists. The deputy was looking at me uneasily. He'd quit grinning. "Just call Art. He'll recommend someone." Art Barfield was our lawyer. His office was in Atlanta, which was where we'd been the first time we needed an attorney.
The deputy looked even more jittery as he absorbed the implication that we had a high-powered lawyer at our backs (which wasn't exactly true), and he began to say something. Suddenly he thought the better of it and stopped, a word half out of his mouth. Then he made up his mind again. "Don't go crazy about this, young lady. Nothing's going to happen to your brother in our jail."
I hadn't even thought about that. My focus had been on my own selfish need for Tolliver, my panic for fear of how I'd manage without him. I had been frightened of the wrong thing, I saw immediately. I realized Tolliver would be in the hands of this deputy, who was a fool with power.
Tolliver began trying to make his way around the car to me, and the deputy yanked him back by his cuffed wrists.
I had to pull myself together. I concentrated, completely, on pushing the terrified child inside me back into her hole. I breathed slowly, deeply. I had to focus on Tolliver now, not myself and my trembling hands. My brain began to function again; maybe not well, but it began to produce thoughts.
I looked directly into Bledsoe's eyes. "If anything happens to Tolliver in your jail, it would be very, very unfortunate." That wasn't a threat, was it? I didn't want to give him any excuse to lock me up, too.
"I'm going to get our cell phone from my brother, now. It's in his pocket," I said, in a voice barely above a whisper. I put my purse on the hood of the car so that I was obviously unarmed and unencumbered. No one moved as I held up my hands and walked very slowly over to Tolliver. I wanted the deputy to die. I wanted to stand on his grave. I never lowered my stare from his eyes, which were narrow and watery blue. His lids fluttered, and he looked away at his patrol car, pretending to be fascinated by the querulous voice coming over the radio.
I slid my hand in Tolliver's pocket, pulled out the phone.
"Proud of you," he murmured, and I smiled up at him, as much of a smile as I could manage. I lay my head against his shoulder for a second, and then I straightened, widening the smile as much as I could, while the deputy shoved Tolliver into the back of the patrol car. The policeman climbed in, and while I watched him, he backed out and drove Tolliver away.
I stood there until the man inside the auto parts store came out to ask me if I was all right.
twelve
I drove back to the motel very slowly and carefully. I felt like my right hand had been amputated, or one of my feet. I felt exposed and as vulnerable as if a target were attached to my back, as conspicuous as a giraffe would be if it wandered down the streets of Sarne.
When I was back in my room, with the door locked, I felt how close I was to the edge. My right leg, damaged by the lightning all those years ago, was trembling and would barely take my weight. But I got a grip, if only by my fingernails. I stared into the mirror over the sink. "I'm going to hold on," I told myself out loud. "I'm going to hold on, because I'm the only one Tolliver has to get him out of this." I felt better after I'd stared at myself for a minute and seen my own resolve. I looked like a person who could cope.
I called Art Barfield. Art was not a nationally famous lawyer, nor was he a member of a huge firm. He was well respected in the south for his old and wealthy family, and well known in Atlanta for his eccentricity. He was in a partnership with two other lawyers, lawyers only a bit more traditional than Art.
His secretary was a straight arrow, and she was not amused to hear me demand to be put straight through to Art. But after she checked with her boss, I heard his booming southern voice, and the dreadful tension that had gripped me eased off a fraction.
"Where are you, honeychild?" Art asked.
"Sarne, Arkansas."
"My God almighty, what the hell are you doing there?"
I almost smiled. "We had a case here. But there were complications. When we came out of the auto parts store, there was this asshole deputy waiting to arrest Tolliver." I explained about the open warrants and the broken taillight.
"Hmmm. So, Tolliver is in jail? "
"Yes." That was way too close to a whine. I gripped the cell phone so tightly my fingers were white.
"You're there all by yourself, darlin'? "
"Yes."
"That's not good. Of course Tolliver's not wanted in Montana. We got that all cleared up. He couldn't be arrested for a broken taillight, so the cop trumped up something else for some reason."
That really wasn't the point I'd make if I were defending Tolliver, but I was glad to talk to someone who took Tolliver's innocence for granted.
"Are you going to be able to handle this, sweet thing?" Art's voice was very gentle, but also brisk, as if he expected a quick answer.
"Yes, I'll be fine," I said, pretty sure I was lying.
"That means you're going to try real hard," Art translated.
"Yep."
"Good for you, darlin'. Tell you what, I know a lawyer in Little Rock who can drive up there and steer you through this. Her name is Phyllis Folliette. Write that down, now."
There was nothing wrong with my memory, but I did write it down, along with the lawyer's phone number.
"I'm calling her as soon as I hang up the phone with you, and she'll be in touch with you right away, or at least very soon."
"That's good," I said. "That's real good. Listen, Art? They can't open packages we were sending via UPS, can they? "
"No," he said. "I guess they'd have to have a warrant to do that." Then he told me to call him if I needed anything more and hung up.
I was hoping that Bledsoe didn't know what we were doing at the auto parts store; he hadn't gone inside to enquire while I was standing there, and he hadn't asked me. So maybe sending off the hair samples hadn't been the trigger for Tolliver's arrest. Maybe there had been something else.
Harvey Branscom, while not my favorite guy, had seemed like a pretty independent fellow to me, and one who knew his business. Why would he consent to be part of the charade outside the auto parts store? Who could influence him so heavily? He had to know what his deputy was doing.
What was gained by having Tolliver in jail? That was the crucial question. What was the result of his incarceration?
Well, the first thing to pop up in my mind was that we'd have to stay in Sarne longer now. But I couldn't understand why that would be to anyone's advantage. A wild thought crossed my mind, and I made myself consider it. Could Hollis have become so nuts about me in such a short time that he was willing to frame Tolliver to keep me here? I just couldn't
